Some embodiments described herein relate generally to methods and apparatus for sharing and searching encrypted data and/or documents. In particular, but not by way of limitation, some embodiments described herein relate to methods and apparatus for sharing a subset of a set of encrypted data and searching encrypted indexes associated with the subset of the set of encrypted data.
Some enterprises are known to encrypt their electronic files containing sensitive data for security and privacy concerns. Sharing encrypted data with other users and allowing these users to search among the encrypted data based on content within the encrypted data can be challenging. Some known solutions that allow sharing a subset of encrypted documents with other users, however, do not support searching among the subset of encrypted documents. Some known solutions that support searching present a security problem because searchable data are not encrypted and are therefore open to security attacks.
Accordingly, a need exists for improved methods and apparatus for securely sharing and searching encrypted data.